Welcome to A Whole New World: What Changes Are ahead? What's Most Important?
Hello, everyone, welcome to “Inconvenient Truths”. I am your host Jennifer Zeng.
In my last show, I promised to talk about what I mean by “A Whole New World”. Today let me fulfill this promise and talk about what Jan. 6 means to American history: its significance, and how we should cope with what will be happening.
My main point is, Jan. 6 marks the death, or the beginning of the death, of America’s democracy.
Perhaps many people have said the same thing, but what I mean is something different. I am talking about a possible bigger and deeper change that human beings are going to see and experience.
Imminent Changes
But first of all, let’s talk about some more obvious and imminent changes we are going to see after Biden is in office.
The entire society turning more to the left. From the policies Biden already announced, we already know this. So I won’t talk about the details here.
Much less room for free speech. We’ve already seen this happening too. With big tech acting like a judge, or a court, what is allowed to be said, and what is not allowed to be said is already decided by these companies. You can argue that they are private companies, and they have the right to decide who can be on their platforms, and what can be said there. But the fact, or the result is, free speech is greatly limited, to the point that for some people, it no longer exists.
If they can silence John Smith today, tomorrow they can silence anybody they want to silence.
3. Cleansing. This is also already happening. Again, “private” businesses are already blocking or denying to offer services to President Trump, who will soon become a civilian like you and me. Other people are making lists to make sure that Trump supporters will be punished one way or the other.
Four Things to Watch for America’s Future Course
Then, what are the factors that can determine America’s immediate future course?
The Situation of the Pandemic
If the pandemic is under control, America’s status quo could be sustained for a little while.
However, if it gets out of control, things will be very different.
Let’s take a look at the current numbers of daily new cases, active cases, total deaths and daily new deaths. We can see that all these numbers have gone up very sharply since Nov, right after Election Day. Does this have any kind of indication, or hidden message, for us to enlighten to? Maybe everyone can draw his or her conclusion. For me, there is no coincidence in this world, everything happens for a reason.
We all know that the once almighty ancient Rome went into decline after suffering many plagues. The modern time new Europe came into existence after the Black Death. Today's pandemic could change the status quo and rewrite American history as well.
So, for the new US government, the pandemic will be an immediate and huge challenge. Joe Biden has also warned us that a darker winter is ahead of us.
2. The Economy
Again, if the pandemic goes out of control, the economy will be hit very badly, and it is hard to say whether we can expect another strong bounce back like the one we had for the 3rd quarter of last year.
3. How Will the New Administration Deal with the CCP?
The CCP is the greatest threat to the US, and actually to the world, for that matter. This has long since become a bi-partisan consensus, especially in the past few years. How will the new administration deal with the CCP? Many people call Joe Biden “China Joe”, because of his family’s business ties with China. So how will Biden’s China strategy be different from that of Trump’s? Will he undo the trade war and many other sanctions imposed on the CCP by President Trump? If yes, to what extent, and how will that affect America’s future? All these are to be carefully watched.
4. Will Americans choose to return to traditional values, rebuild the "City upon A Hill", or slide into socialism?
The birth of the United States was a miracle. The Declaration of Independence begins with "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."
It is because of the acknowledgment of the existence of the Creator that people can fundamentally respect each other and citizens can be free from governmental persecution. This is the fundamental spirit of America's founding, and this spirit has seen the US through all sorts of difficulties and hard times.
However, will it be able to see through America with its current crises? Can and will Americans continue to hold on to this spirit, or will they be led into socialism inevitably?
We will also need to watch this closely.
Is Democracy Dead in America?
Now, let’s go back to our point at the beginning. Is democracy dead in America?
In his book “Democracy”, Charles Tilly listed four signs of de-democratization.
1. The deterioration of free and fair elections and the emergence of rigged elections;
2. The erosion of freedom of speech, press, and association and the weakened ability of political opposition to challenge the government;
3.The erosion of the rule of law, the weakened restraint on government and the threat to judicial independence;
and 4. The creation or overemphasis of national security threats by the government to create a "sense of crisis."
I think we are seeing all the above 4 signs happening in America now. I was quite amazed when I saw footage of Capitol Hill being guarded with iron fences and barbed wire. The first thought I had was: Has Capitol Hill been turned into a prison?
There are also reports that thousands of National Guard members were sent to Washington, D.C. ahead of the inauguration, and that the entire National Mall will be closed for Inauguration Day, open only to press and police.
How ridiculous. These measures, for me, are very unnecessary and even hypocritical. It is an exaggerated and fabricated situation and crisis with a very sinister agenda behind it. They need this situation and crisis to justify the terrible blame they put on others, and to create justifications for their future, perhaps more severe crackdown and persecution on others.
And this, of course, falls into the 4th sign of the de-democratization that Charles Tilly talked about: The creation or overemphasis of national security threats by the government to create a "sense of crisis."
While I do agree that we have a lot of crises in America today, the crises are not what they are trying to present, and the ways to tackle the crises are not what are being adopted now. Pushing away or pushing down the problems will not resolve them, but will only make them worse.
Why and How Does Democracy Fail?
America’s democracy, constitution, and system were once regarded the most perfect in the world. The perfect design and balance of power has ensured the stability, prosperity and strength of the United States.
However, in recent years, especially during the past election, we watched with amazement how this system failed all the way from the beginning to the end to ensure a fair and transparent election, or the integrity of the election. Any questioning of the process or results of the election were suppressed so harshly, to the point that they even don’t allow you to talk about it anymore, or call you “domestic terrorists” if you still dare to talk about, question, or challenge it.
Why did the whole system fail?
I realized, actually, I learned this from someone many, many years ago, that the most important thing for the human kind is not the laws, or the rules, or the systems, but the human heart. We are having more and more laws now, but if the human hearts turn bad, no law can prevent society from turning bad.
That’s why the CCP chose to corrupt our politicians, law makers, Wall Street elites, etc, who are at the key positions of our system. When these people fail to uphold the principles, the system collapses overnight, without our country being invaded by any physical, foreign armies.
John Adams, the second President of the United States, and one of the five members who drafted the Declaration of Independence, once also said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
So, from this perspective, I am afraid that America’s democracy has already started to die, or will die eventually, if we cannot restore human hearts and morality.
The Cycle of “Formation-Stasis-Degeneration-Destruction-Emptiness”
According to Buddhist theory, anything in the universe goes through a cycle of “formation-stasis-degeneration-destruction-emptiness”, after a long period of “stasis”, when things are stable and good, the periods of degeneration, destruction, and emptiness will follow.
So, if we apply this principle or this theory to democracy, what period we are in now? Perhaps somewhere between degeneration and destruction, or, the beginning stage of destruction.
Shall we feel sad? I am afraid that we will have to as we are in such a special moment of history. Huge changes are unfolding right in front of our eyes. “A whole new world” may not be something that we have expected, but let’s trust that God, or Heaven, is in control. While humans do our elections or make our choices, God also makes his selections based on human beings’ behaviors and choices. At the end of the day, what really matters are our own choices, not who is going to govern this country.
That’s all I will say for today. Thank you for watching. Please don’t forget to subscribe to my channel, share it, and check out my other videos.
Thank you. See you soon!
1/16/2021 *
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